Wednesday, March 16, 2005

dried mango, train stations and rowing

i like train stations, or maybe more accurately i like being in train stations.........they are definately places of the 'now', where the past and future converge, and the moment is real.........people going somewhere, coming from somewhere, arriving, departing, but for a few seconds or minutes, actually there....here.. well thats the feeling i always get in a train station.i would probably make a good trainspotter....oh dear.

i am used to working on my own, i work better on my own, i find it incredibly difficult working as part of a team....i have never been a good employee, too lippy and cannot keep me gob shut when i see a solution to a problem, or some injustice, a foolish type of bravery that has got me dumped from many jobs, either me saying 'fuck it' and walking away, or 'getting the push'

i am finding being part of a team, tricky, and a bit awkward, in my volutary role as a part of a larger group of other volunteers, and need to blog that fact here to acknowlegde that fact, and therefore 'make it real' and therefore can begin to deal with the 'trickiness', or at least understand a little better and develop a coping mechanism.I hope i understand that as part of a team, your ideas and hopes for that team may not be acceptable to the team as a whole, and in any democratic group then one has to accept that the majority decision usually wins the day.I guess ultimately you have to beleive in the direction and method of that group and hold faith that, even if you are not 100 percent happy with every decision made, then on the whole, the decision(s) are for the benefit of the group and its aims.if i feel strongly enough though about a point then i can be like a dog with a bone.....

In any group there are always strong personalities and eloquent speakers, and some less so.I feel that the quiet and not-so-forthright also have a equal part to play within the group and am inclined to listen to the quiet voice more carefully and intently.........

when you join a team that is already established, and you are the 'new kid on the block', you have to learn the ways and get with the rhythm, learn to row in sync, otherwise the boat gets all rocky, and gets off course......

up to now i have been doing the single sculls for quite a while now, sometimes with one oar, and rowing around the big pond in small circles...............dont know how i am gonna cope with moving on to the bigger boat, or if i will end up walking the plank.........

oh well, theres always me notebook and old anorak and the flying scotsman......